Closing: a dated step, not pressure.
Aggressive closing lowers your signature rate in complex sales, and we’ve known that for forty years. What gets a deal signed is complete discovery and a next step the prospect agreed to themselves, with a date and a name on it.
The close is decided in discovery
A deal that doesn’t close is almost always a deal with a letter missing: the decision-maker, the timeline, the stakes in numbers. No closing line makes up for a decision-maker you never met. Before you hunt for the right phrase, look at what’s missing from the discovery plan.
The next step, dated and named
Closing in B2B isn’t “so, are you signing?” It’s a chain of steps, each one locked at the end of the previous call. The rule: never hang up without a step that has a date, a name and a purpose.
- “Let’s meet again Thursday with your partner, thirty minutes, to go through the numbers. 11 or 3?”
- “In the meantime I’ll send the proposal. Can you read it by Tuesday so we can talk it through Thursday?”
The lines that work
No “if I knock 10% off, will you sign today?” Questions that move things forward without pushing.
- “What would you need to make a decision?” The answer is your list of what’s left to do.
- “If we go ahead, what happens on your side, and when?” The answer is the decision process.
- “What could stop this from happening?” The answer is the risk, and you’d rather hear it now.
The silence after the price
You state the price, then you stop talking. The reflex to justify (“because that includes…”) lowers the price in the prospect’s head before they’ve even reacted. Six seconds of silence is enough: they speak, and what they say is the information you need.
Questions
Yes: the close of the first call is the date of the second one with the decision-maker. Every call has its own close, and it isn’t the signature.
